riches and fame if you got game

Hello Ladies

Athletes make millions of dollars to play games, if that isn't bad enough they also get paid millions of dollars to endorse useless crap. I personally don't care which athlete endorses my shoes and my fragrance isn't one you'll find in a store (it has been described as an ashtray found in Jimi Hendrix's dressing room). The only thing endorsements really seem to do is drive up the price of a product simply because it has a celebrity name attached to it, stitched on it, or plastered all over it by various means, that's great for those who are selling it.

Got the munchies?

So you wanna be a rock'n'roll star?

The Buttery Softness your ears desire

Just get an electric guitar and take some time and learn how to play. The record industry is desperately trying to stay alive, unfortunately attempts being made by major labels focus not on quality of material, but appeal to advertisers. Most pop top 40 music is written with specific advertisers in mind and artists are willing to do whatever the record companies demand to get the most out of their royalty checks. Some artists such as The Black Keys have balanced the paycheck and quality of their music quite well. They have sold over 1.7 million records and have had their songs featured in movie soundtracks and several commercials. They have never written songs specifically to be chart toppers or used in advertisements and have forgone much of the the digital studio trickery in favor of analog recording methods and have stuck to their blues rock roots quite well. Their Merchandise is also quite modest and concert posters are designed by independent artists. They also know how to fire back at the record label when they step out of line, just watch the video. 

The record industry needs to hand more of the creative control back to the artists rather then making demands of the artists for large sums of cash and big profits. Why would I pay for shitty music that has already been bought and sold for millions that has been crafted by lazy artists with a lack of individuality? If artists are able to create a fan base based solely on the quality of music and creativity, they will have no problem making it and living comfortably. 

Turn on, Tune in, Dropped the Remote....

Ron Burgundy, Walter Cronkite's Hero

To be quite frank I hate watching the news, so much so that I had a difficult time completing this assignment to it's fullest extent. I would formally like to lobby on behalf of all future students that only 20 minutes of a broadcast is an adequate amount of time to make a full analysis and construct a well written blog. I began my foray into a serious attempt to watch network news with Wolf Blitzer and The Situation Room. This is where everything began to go downhill, firstly The Situation Room sounds conceited, or like some sort of cruel psychological experiment designed to expose flaws in your personality.  Approximately the first 45 minutes of the show was devoted to Libya: anti-aircraft fire, using reporters as human shields, and what effect will this have on US foreign policy? His guests included field journalists and various political or military consultants. They were all treated with respect, but Blitzer had the annoying habit of wrapping up their piece by restating everything the expert had said into a
simple yes or no question that seemed to make him look as if he was of a sound intellectual background. The remaining 15 minutes was dedicated to the tsunami in Japan and some viewer emails, presented in a similar manner. Having nearly been bored to death while bravely trying to finish my assignment, I decided to retreat from news and have a listen to some Jazz before watching Fox Report with Shepard Smith. I found this to be a much more accurate title than The Situation Room, it's not conceited and presents it's bias in a much more straightforward manner. The programming was a little more diverse in that about a half hour was dedicated to the each the crisis in Libya and tsunami in Japan, there was even a brief mention of some wildfires in the mid-west and a chemical spill in Kentucky. During the segments guest included field journalists and political or military analysts, all were treated with respect, and all were presenting conservative views of the topics discussed, I was a little alarmed at how quickly Fox had labeled US involvement in Libya as the Third War in the Middle East. Smith was guilty of the same things as Blitzer was, rephrasing things to sound intelligent, and gawking at guests on other screens. Bottom line it was some pretty boring stuff and a dreadful experience of one sided views. This weekend being a pretty big one for world news coverage, didn't leave much open in the way of debate on these shows so the biases were not as evident as they normally are. Though the debates are mildly more interesting, I'd still rather have my news delivered by the likes of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, at least I can respect their shenanigans as a form of intellectual entertainment. 

Harsh Reality

Gather idiots, add alcohol.

History Channel's answer to Jersey Shore

Do you remember when MTV actually played music videos? I enjoyed MTV a lot more back then, now instead of music videos they broadcast "reality" TV. There is nothing more mindless and fake then reality TV. You can't escape it either, even the History Channel has fallen prey to the profitability of reality TV. If reality TV was real at all where are the boring moments? The Jersey Shore never has a dull moment, the people may be dull, but they live in some constant conundrum or drama that has been artificially placed there. If there wasn't always some drama, who would watch the show? It is ridiculous to think that all these guidos and guidettes are not being told to instigate things or get totally wasted for the sake of entertainment. Society's demand for reality TV is startling for two reasons. The first is how mindlessly people attempt to emulate reality TV stars, last Halloween you'd be hard pressed not to find someone dressed as a guido or guidette fist pumping in a bar. The second reason reality TV is startling is the sheer demand for it, only a nation of bored uninteresting idiots would demand such a high volume of "reality", perhaps this is because they lead such a boring life they feel the need to watch, in any case there are better things to do then watch a soap opera. I've noticed parallels between how my grandmother would shush me while watching her soap operas and how my friends shush me while they are watching Jersey Shore. Call me crazy (I don't mind) but I have better things to do then sit around and watch a lot of scripted TV like an 83 year old woman. A little reality TV goes a long way, and anything in moderation is alright, but get out and try and live an interesting life. 

Practical Papers

Look Hon! We took our Eagle on vacation!

I look forward to every Thursday, not only because I have mass communications (isn't that cute), but because this is the day the Dundalk Eagle arrives. You may be asking yourself, why do you get excited over a newspaper? Well, I find the criminal activities detailed in the police beat section are usually quite amusing, local sports are reported on by Bill Gates (I doubt he's a billionaire), and you can see your goofy relatives on vacation with their Eagle. With the internet making news available as soon as it happens and 24 hour news networks, newspaper sales have been decreasing steadily. Many major newspapers are in financial trouble, but we must consider the scope of large national newspapers. National newspapers report news that is nationally or globally important, opening your web browser usually results in you seeing those news stories days before you get your paper. If the internet isn't your thing, watching several minutes of a news network broadcast will yield the same result. Local news, however, is usually harder to find, so papers like the Eagle deliver. The Dundalk Eagle reports on the many pertinent community issues, such as, the sale of the steel mill, revitalization of the local economy, and education issues in community schools. These issues are reported on mostly by residents of the Dundalk area so there is a good understanding of the issues faced in Dundalk and they are well articulated and practical news articles. In order to survive these days newspapers have to fill a niche, such as the City Paper, that provides insights into the artistic community. Local news can be considered a niche within the news industry because the stories are personalized, you might see your neighbor on page 8, or find some promotion for a local store. Another thing keeping not just the Eagle but most newspapers alive is the utilitarian nature of a newspaper. Think about it, fifty cents can provide you with enough packing material to protect your commemorative plates, you can use a rolled up newspaper to discipline you dog, a discarded paper will provide a homeless person with a blanket, and the list goes on. All in all newspapers may someday only exist as online entities, but I feel as though that future is still a-ways away. 

Delusions in the check-out line

A babe, a bad-ass, and two nerds, all immaculately brushed up.

The worst part of an excruciatingly long line at Wally-World (Wal-Mart) is being trapped between an old lady contesting her coupons and a hulking lummox that refuses to let you out of the line. While in this predicament, one's eye may wander from candy and batteries to the conveniently placed flasks and beef jerky, finally coming to rest on a magazine cover with some immaculately tanned blond prancing around in a scant bikini. You may have two thoughts here, wow she's perfect! or, photo shop can do some pretty amazing things these days. I find myself thinking the latter, air brushing and photo touch up on magazines covers is on the rise. It makes sense from a marketing stand point, everyone wants to keep up with the Jones' and people are intensely concerned with looking good. Diet and weight are fast becoming major concerns for many Americans and seeing magazines that have sexy "real" people promising cover like results with just ten minutes of exercise just seem to fuel people's delusions and make them eager to part with their money. Not everyone falls for this but for some this can result in extremely unhealthy choices, such as, excessive plastic surgeries, and even binge eating or purging to look "good". Airbrushing is not limited to just people and sex appeal, cooking magazines utilize wax food stand ins for their cover shots, luring us in with our stomachs. Call me a hippie (no really, I don't mind), but I find differences and flaws are what make us human. I'm rather glad I don't look like every tool-bag I see on the cover of some fitness or style magazine, I'd much rather stay humble and not have to worry so much about my image being up to par with what editors and photographers think is good.  I find it hard to believe that everyone appearing on a magazine cover has the exact same intensity of tan or some immaculate god or goddess like body, it just insults intelligence to suggest this, but it still continues to occur. This is not to say that I find all photographic manipulation to be a bad thing, could you imagine having an embarrassing cold sore on the day of your cover shoot? Next thing you know that picture is plastered all over the internet causing some to speculate you may have herpes. I find wide scale airbrushing and photo-shopping is just to unimaginative and cheap, who hasn't used sex appeal to play with our emotions and get us to buy things? I can only hope that society gets wise to the delusions created by airbrushing, people may actually find they like being themselves better than chasing a photo-shop  pipe dream.

Kieth Richards still looks like a skeleton despite airbrushing, he's chased one to many pipe dreams.